Great Day for Retail REITs

Tue, 2008-01-22 22:48

You don't need me to tell you how crazy a day its been on the markets. The Dow was down huge right from the open. Federal Reserve Chairman Benjamin Bernanke slashed the federal funds rate target. The market rebounded. The Dow ended the day down 128.11 points--which is about 300 points better than it started the day. Meanwhile the dollar suffered its biggest drop against many of the currencies its traded against in a while.

The most interesting thing from my perspective was that retail REITs enjoyed a serious rally.

Nearly every REIT that is all or part retail gained today and gained pretty big. At one point, some REITs were up more than 7 percent on the day before settling down a bit by the end of trading. Still, given how badly REITs were getting beat up, this classifies as a great day.

Any thoughts as to why people suddenly flooded back to REITs? Is the hunt for dividend payments?